American Lawn Mower 1414-16 16-Inch Standard Push Full Feature Reel Lawn Mower With T-Style Handle

Comment: Its a good mower but mostly on thick grass. My yard died recently because of all this heat this summer and is starting to grow back so its not this nice st. Augustine grass everyone has. when you have my type of grass it tends to roll over a lot of long strands instead of catching them and cutting them. leaving you with a bunch of long pieces of grass scattered around the place. But other than that, and catching every stick in the way, it works good. i have thick parts of my yard and it works great on those.

My advice, if you have really nice thick grass, this is the mower for you. if not, spend $40 more on a gas mower.

Comment: If this is your first reel mower and you are used to a gas or electric model, this mower will take some getting used to. Your lawn will also need some time to adjust, but the time and effort are worth it! The mower provides an excellent, clean cut leaving your lawn looking properly shorn rather than "whipped" short. The results are amazing! I bought the catcher attachment, but have stopped using it as the clippings provide water-conserving mulch and a natural source of nitrogen for the lawn. I can honestly say my lawn has never looked better. I would have given five stars, but there are a couple of caveats. First, the overlap is rather excessive. Once your lawn has adjusted to the mower - and it takes around four weeks of mowing - you will be able to see the wheel tracks from your previous pass. Unlike traditional mowers where you have a near zero clearance margin, you will need to overlap the previous pass by at least 1/3 the mower's width. This results in more passes. Secondly, I mow my lawn twice in perpendicular/intersecting patterns. This gets some of the blades missed in the first mowing and it minces the clippings making a more effective mulch. I don't mind it so much as the results are awesome, but this mower does require a bit more work.

On the plus side, it is made in the USA! The quality is evident in the heft and smoothness of operation. Several of my family members laughed at my retrograding to a reel mower, but I love this mower. It is near silent and does not create a hay-fever-inducing dust cloud. I can mow early in the morning, when the grass blades are standing nice an tall, without disturbing the neighbors. The dew hardly affects the mower. Maintenance involves an occasional application of WD-40 to the cutting surfaces. All that and I can hang the thing in my shed freeing up a ton of floor space.

In conclusion, this is an excellent purchase! If you are dedicated to eliminating pollutants, or just have a small lawn that doesn't justify a larger gas or electric mower, this is the model for you. It requires a change in paradigm, but it is well worth the investment. I can't stress enough how much nicer my lawn looks since I've started using this mower and I have not fertilized it (and speaking to that, I have Blue Fescue which I cut on the second to highest setting, once a week, during the Central CA summer. I will lower the cutting height about 3/4" for winter. Lowering the blades does involve tools, but only takes about five minutes.)

Comment: I really looked forward to this mower. I wanted a quiet, efficient way to deal with our lawn, and used a reel mower years ago with no problems. It is quieter, not too hard to push, but it just lays the grass down. At first, I thought the grass was too high, but tried again when the lawn was shorter and it is hard to tell where I mowed. I am very disappointed and out $90.

Comment: When my wife and I moved into a new house, we had about 500sf of grass to cut (a 20'x20' area and a 10'x10' area). It was too much to try and do with a weed whacker, but definitely not enough to justify a gas powered mower. We ordered this mower based on the fact that it was metal and cast-iron and would be more durable than one with plastic components. This reel mower works fairly well and we both enjoy using it.

While I do make 2-3 passes over the lawn and, the mower still leaves a few blades of grass standing. This is addressed by the manual and happens because the grass is too long to get caught in the reel mechanism, so I can't definitively fault to mower for that. The one thing I can fault it for is the plastic back roller assembly which is probably the weakest link in the whole metal and cast iron thing. The assembly has come off of the mower twice while using it and there is unfortunately no real way to secure it 100%; this is the one area that could use improvement if you American Lawn Mower people are reading.

Comment: I purchased the OEM version of this mower at Home Depot then took it back when I found this model on Amazon, which is all cast iron and American Made. This mower does what it is advertised to do and the cast iron model adds a bit more weight over the more plastic models adding to the quality of operation.

This mower takes no more effort than a similar gasoline rotary type mower. I have a 1 acre lot, but use this mower for trimming the small areas and getting a bit more exercise for the effort. The rest of the yard I use the riding mower. This mower does a superlative job on Bermuda grass, and about the same on weeds as the riding mower.

I'm very pleased with this product and appreciate machines that stand the test of time. What is does, it does well and does not use gas.